Dorothy Friedman's blog

Hi all – this is my buddy Kobe, one of my favorite dogs at North Shore Animal League. For the last couple of months, I have walked him every weekend. We played tag in the dog run and snuggled on the bench in there and I always got a kick out of seeing the purple spots on his tongue.

I got great news today – Kobe found his forever home…and it comes with a doggie sibling! It’s a bittersweet moment for me. I am so thrilled that he has a new loving family but I will miss his goofy grin and the way he would fake me out running behind the trees in the dog run.

On Friday, I had the whole day and night to myself, a very rare occurrence. I needed to use a vacation day that was left over from last year so had the day off from work. And my husband was playing in a charity poker tournament after work so wouldn’t be around.

What to do with all of this free time?

I started my day at Feel Well in Wantagh, Long Island with a therapeutic massage. Patty Ann, the massage therapist managed to get most of the knots our of my neck and shoulders (no easy task!). I then used a Groupon for a body scrub/wrap, facial and paraffin treatment for my hands. The cranberry-pomegranate scrub smelled heavenly and sloughed away all my old dead skin. While I was swaddled in the wrap, Denise began my mini-facial. While my skin does look amazing, the best part was the head massage. During all this, my hands were being renewed while encased in paraffin and what seemed like heated over mitts. I highly recommend Feel Well – it’s no frills but very clean and all of the therapists I’ve met so far have been great.

After all of this pampering, I met a girlfriend for lunch, a treat for me during the week at home! We chatted and caught up and spent some time with her adorable 2-year old son at a local pizza joint.

I spent 90 minutes at the gym, yes, 90 MINUTES, which is far more than I usually have time for during the week. After dinner, I decided to try P90X yoga. I have never done yoga and heard it was quite a challenge. I am now able to do a passable downward dog and some very good warrior poses. I made it through 45 minutes of the DVD and will try more soon!

Catching up on Desperate Housewives, truly a guilty pleasure was a great way to wind down. Of course, no day could be complete without playing Words With Friends! Then I grabbed my Kindle to read some more of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I heard good things about it and it hasn’t disappointed yet.

All in all, a great way to spend a day off. How would you spend your day off? Let me know in the comments.

Isabelle was a trainer at North Shore Animal League where I am a volunteer dog walker. I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with her but I liked and respected her a ton. She taught me a lot during her early morning play group sessions with the dogs. She passed away a year ago. I still miss her.

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to participate in my first industry panel (or any panel for that matter). The title was Marketing to the Capital Markets, a topic near and dear to my heart. The moderator, Greg Crawford, editor of TabbFORUM did an excellent job. My co-panelists were Candyce Edelen, CEO of PropelGrowth and Erika Alter, Head of Marketing for Data Explorers. I am proud to have been on a panel with such intelligent, articulate and knowledgeable women.

The panel was sponsored by and hosted on Focus.com. Before this panel, I had never heard of Focus.com. I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed by this platform. It’s very interactive and measures attendee sentiment during the panel so you can see if people listening are interested or not. Happily, we had some great interest! It also allows people to ask questions and for all attendees to vote a question up or down.

As with all panels, we had some prepared questions and started with those but as soon as the panel started, we began to get questions in fast and furiously.

If you’re interested in learning more and listening to the panel, you can do so here: http://bit.ly/marketingpanel. I would love to hear your comments. Please post them below.